The NWO (Dutch Research Council), in the Call for the Open Competition - Domain Social Sciences and Humanities (SSH) - has awarded an XS grant to both Paul Bouman and Bastian Ravesteijn of Erasmus School of Economics. They will receive a grant of up to 50,000 euro each.
In 2022, the NWO launched the NWO Open Competition SSH Call. This Call is allocated in three different types of grants, of which the XS grant is specifically intended to encourage curiosity-driven and bold research that involves the relatively rapid exploration of a promising idea (12 months maximum). The research projects must be ground-breaking and are high risk-high gain. Most important is that the result of each project contributes to the advancement of science.
About the project of Paul Bouman
Paul Bouman is an associate professor at the Econometric Institute, Erasmus School of Economics, and a member of Erasmus Research Institute of Management (ERIM). He holds a PhD from Erasmus University Rotterdam. Paul is fascinated by the innovations and possibilities enabled by computers.
His awarded XS project is titled “Prompting for Personality: Can we and should we use large language models to simulate human transport decisions?”. The project explores the advantages and disadvantages of Large language models (LLMs) to model human decision making in transportation. Traditional approaches often rely on strong assumptions, mathematical simplification or costly labour. The project will analyse the sensitivity and explainability of LLMs in this context, and reflect on the scientific suitability of this approach. The goal is to develop experience and competences with the use of LLMs in simulation studies and share this within relevant scientific fields.
About the project of Bastian Ravesteijn
Bastian Ravesteijn is an assistant professor at the Applied Economics department, Erasmus School of Economics, and he is a Tinbergen Institute Research Fellow. He holds a PhD from Erasmus University Rotterdam. His research interests are in health economics, public economics, and applied econometrics.
His awarded XS project is called “How, when, and where does the opportunity gap open up in the Netherlands?” and investigates the following: The Netherlands is considered an egalitarian country, with a strong social safety net, employment protection, and universal health insurance with broad basic coverage. But to what extent are the outcomes of individuals associated with the circumstances in which they grew up? The project uses rich administrative data of the full Dutch population to explore how differences in opportunity arise in terms of health, education, housing, and economic activity, measured at different ages. In addition, the project will characterize Dutch municipalities and neighborhoods where upward intergenerational social mobility is particularly high or low.
- More information
For more information, please contact Ronald de Groot, Media & Public Relations Officer at Erasmus School of Economics: rdegroot@ese.eur.nl, +31 6 53 641 846.
Dr. Paul Bouman - dr. PC (Paul) Bouman | Erasmus University Rotterdam
Dr. Bastian Ravesteijn - dr. B (Bastian) Ravesteijn | Erasmus University Rotterdam
